The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-02-17
DuIled and Warped Spirits.

To prove myself right | have only to ask
any of my readers to go with ME into houses
where hard work dull, plodding care, a
monotonous existence, unrelieved by the
qualification of any of the finer tastes, is the
order of the day through monOtOnOus
stretch of years. Are not most perceptions
dulled> Are any of those unfortunate people
alive to the capacities of life? Is not the
spirit, if not warped into a critical carping
querulousness, at least dulled and made
heavy, incapable of approaching the more
delicate shades of feeling, and, what is
worse, ready to crush out by its warped
condition all spontaneity in another? 1t is
not enough to pity these people nor to con-
done their faults by saying that the hard
ships of IA life they have tried to live honestly
have made them what they are. There are
so many ways of being virtuouS; and surely
the virtue that is accomplished by dulling
and Wrapping the spirit is unlovely one.
Moreover, when one thinks of the evil
effect produced on others by people who are
unduly absorbed with material cares, the
responsibility becomes "a grave one The
best and sweetest in ones nature is too
often crushed out and killed by having hal
its first expressions suppressed or repulsed
by people too busy, too preOccupied to
pay heed The little child who runs in
eager joy to its fathers study door, holding
out to him some trife it has brought with
all its love and enthusiasm TO make the ia
Their happy Does any one think that chid's
love will ever be as spontaneous again. or as
sweet, its little acts as lovely or as sweet,
if that father simply pats the child on the
head with a preoccupied, Indifferent man
ner, or mods and shuts the door, but half
regartlful of the childs
We are told, indeed, to beware of wound
ing the spirit of a child but how many of us
I,x1 Ni,.fr Of h..rn
is something eternally childlike, an element
delicate in its susceptibilities that in
the unsullied spirit Of child, to be killed
or crushed or warped i'll older as in younger
people an element that is always being born
again through every exercise of ones best
impulses? Yet for all that in how many
households does one find it part of the
domestic creed to let the spirit have its
growth, to accomplish all the duties, the
material cares of life, but when accom-
plished to subordinate them, and not let them
rise uppernost and mar the expression of
either the courteses or affections of family
Husbands and wives mothers and daughters
are alienated by no greater causes. Many a
member of IA household coming home full of
desire to impart some of the pleasure gained
from outside things has been received, when
not with actual Indifference, yet with some
detail of anxiety thrown out in ones face
as it were. What can be said after that?
Now, of course, it may be asked what
remedy Is to be suggested for people who
are obliged to live hart, self denying, plod'
ding livess There are many answers
might give, since the plodtier, the careworn
spirit, the unduly anxious soul, live i'll lux
ury as we'll as i'll want. But To one and all
/ can say that there is at least the sky over
your heads with its beauty of stars at night
| and its glory of sunshine by day. Look up
at il away from the earth. Merge your
selves in something outside of yourselves
| Take pleasure "a it comes Rise above your
| cares ls you would, were your body pain
racked, rise above your pain. More than
| all, remember that, though You have your
/ own spirits in your keeping. you have some
/ Responsibilities. and grave ones, about those
] of your neighbors. Do not crush out spon-
! taneity in the young, and where ones ties
! are close leave the way open and clear for
/ the perfect and untrammeled expression OF
| all impulses of the affections. BE alive u
what lies of the best in another spirit.
| And do not let the dull routine of life, ltS
| all time for other things Watch out III
| yourselves for the first hard pressure that
the finger of adverse circumstances imprint'
! on your soul, and break away for breath
ing spell Rachel Hamilton i'll New YORK
! Star.